Piper Heideseck Cuvee Florens Louis - info please?

WINE TALK
1

Friends brought a bottle of this as a gift. Is it simply a late release/disgorged NV Piper? Never heard of it before [scratch.gif] . Any and all info gratefully received.

[thankyou.gif]

Peter

2

P,

Former tete de cuvee of Piper Heidsieck until the mid-70s (I never had one after 75, but couldn’t say for sure if the last vintage was 75 or 76; 76 is when Piper started releasing “Rare” as the new tete de cuvee). I really like this cuvee and it was higher in Chardonnay than what the Rare was and always seemed more elegant. It normally saw no-malolactic and was done in the classic rough when young, but long aging Piper style. A very good and almost great wine that is often overlooked. Which vintage?

3

Piper Heidsieck also released a non-vintage Cuvee Florens Louis a few years ago ('04 or '05), which I think is what you have since you referred to your bottle as an NV.
I believe it was a “luxury” NV, above their regular NV Brut bottling. What the difference was - whether it was grape selection, longer aging on lees etc - I don’t know. Also, I don’t believe the make this NV cuvee any longer.

4

Ray,

Cool info. What the heck was Piper thinking releasing an NV Rare and and NV Florens-Louis in the 2003-2007 timeframe? Any clue as to the difference? I never knew they released this, but Piper has always liked odd NV cuvees. First the NV Jean Paul Gautier (which is actually pretty good) then the NV Rare (which is better than most vintaged Rares) and now learning of the Florens-Louis… shame they don’t get more respect.

Do you know if this ever came to the US or which markets it was released in?

5

Ray,
Went back and looked through old publicity material and actually have some Piper stuff from either 05 or 06 that shows this cuvee as an NV. I’ve never had it nor realized this before. It matches the normal Piper label dressing and appears to come in between the vintage and the Rare (where the Jean-Paul Gautier used to come in). No clue if this is where Piper viewed it would come in and still no clue in which markets it was sold. Did you ever try it?

6

Never tried a bottle. Only reason I know it existed was I saw some for sale at auction in a mixed lot and thought there was a cataloging mistake, so I had them double check to see if it was a vintage incorrectly listed as an NV. This was an overseas auction so I don’t know if this was distributed in the US through normal channels.

P.,

Assuming you live in the US, can you tell us what the import strip label says. Thanks. Sorry I wasn’t of more help.

7

Brad,

Maybe I’ll find a bottle of '62 Piper Pink Florens Louis one of these days. [wink.gif]

8

Messrs Tuppatsch & Baker…exactly the gentlemen I was hoping to hear from. Thanks for getting back to me. Brad, its definitely an NV.

Ray, I think its a European bottle (my friends moved to NY late last year from the UK). It doesn’t have a US importer strip, and instead of the usual words of warning from the Surgeon General, there’s simply a silhouetted graphic of a pregnant woman chugging into a glass of wine with a diagonal line across it.

Cool feedback. I’ll post some notes when I get around to opening it.

Cheers

Peter

9

Ray,

It would be very cool to compile a list of all these short lived cuvees or just those not seen as often or mistakenly billed as something they are not. Even today you can run into Clicquot’s NV St. Petersburg or Taittinger’s NV Cuvee Prestige and each can catch folks off guard as to what they are. I wonder how many other wines similar to Piper Pink or Krug Light are still out there waiting to be found?

10

That definitely means it is a newer release and not some weird NV version from the 70s. Let us know how the bottle goes.

Managed to find a link to a picture of this cuvee in its modern form:
http://tastingnotes.dk/wp-content/uploads/2008/03/champlu3.jpg

Everything on this, seems to point to this being an only or mostly European cuvee, but I wouldn’t be surprised to hear some got to the US. The price point seemed to be equal to the vintage cuvee, but still don’t know the exact difference other than Piper billing it as a more refined, deeper, and flavorful version of the basic NV.